Saturday, March 7, 2009

Resident Evil: Degeneration

Nothing is more entertaining than an hour and a half video game cutscene.

You can actually name a South American dictator "General Grande" and people will take it seriously.

Top police commandos will be selected based on the poutiness of their lips and their ability to stand so they're bathed in light.

The film makers like to take cool past the point of "cool" and deep into the wild land of the ridiculous. Hot shot special agents all have emo-kid hair, soldiers do crazy hand jives to communicate, and people have to pose before laying waste to armies of zombies.

Protesters are mindless, uninformed busybodies and should stay out of the way of well-meaning corporate entities, except:

Pharmaceutical companies do nothing but design monster drugs and create gigantic, self-immolating laboratories. When the monster apocalypse comes, you damn well better believe Johnson & Johnson will play a part in it.

Everyone's face perfectly matches the role they will play in life, with no imaginative deviation. The obnoxious swine will be fat and jowly, the overconfident lug will be huge and blockheaded, the kid will be made out of porcelain and radiate near-toxic levels of cute, the love interest will be frail and model gorgeous even if they're elite police, and the icy mastermind will be a near albino with a British accent.

It ain't Resident Evil without some obnoxious kid for the heroes to worry about.

If you ever want to know who the villain is, look for the dude/dame with the hair curtain: Hey there, surly teenagers! I've got my eye on you.

Given a choice between subtlety and exposition, Anime-style storytellers will ALWAYS choose to hit you over the head with the exposition bat. Also, big ups on the melodrama.

Watching this was like being clubbed in the face with stupid. Still, the zombie shootouts were fun. Eff it. Two stars.